Trip plan · OTIUM · Marine Area 8-2

Port Susan Tender Shakedown

Port of Everett to Kayak Point and back · Friday 18 – Saturday 19 September 2026 · one night on the hook · Archived — not taken

20.8 nmRound trip

2.6 hUnder way

~28 galDiesel at 10 gph

5 ktPeak wind

1 nightAt anchor

Conditions frozenFri Sep 18, 2026Version1.11.3 2026-09-20

Archived — not taken

We stayed on the dock. The third plan over this window to come off, after Port Townsend and Eagle Harbor, and the weather was not the reason for any of them — this one had 2.9 to 4.5 kt and clear skies for the whole departure window. The planning is kept because it holds: the anchorage off Kayak Point, the scope arithmetic, the packing and food lists, and a power budget for the APEX 300 with no generator are all good the next time this weekend comes round.

Every forecast number below is frozen as it stood on Friday 18 September 2026 — the day it was to depart, and the last day the model could speak to it. The page was archived on the 20th; the conditions were not re-derived then because the model does not run backwards, so what is here is what was believed on the morning of departure. It is a snapshot, not a forecast. For live conditions go to the area pages.

Two things this page is still not: Maps 1 and 2 are vector schematics with hand-sketched shorelines — waypoints, bearings and scale bars are computed and true, the coastlines are not survey data — and the boat carries no radar, which is what made that Saturday morning fog the hazard it was.

The Eagle Harbor weekend is off — a four o'clock departure does not reach Bainbridge in daylight, and it never made sense to arrive at an anchorage in the dark to test a tender for the first time. This replaces it with the shortest useful overnight in home water: 10.4 nautical miles up into Port Susan, anchor off a county park beach with an hour and a half of light in hand, and spend that light on the thing this trip is actually for.

01Before you go

One night, two people, back Saturday afternoon. The list is short on purpose — everything below either gets used or keeps somebody warm, and the boat already carries the rest. Tick it here and it stays ticked: this page remembers in your browser, so the ship list and the shore list can be done hours apart.

Galley — buy today

• Sourdough loaf and a bag of bagels
• Hummus, vegan cream cheese, red onion
• Pasta and a jar of marinaraFriday dinner, one pot, no watched pot
• Tinned chickpeas ×2, tin of coconut milk, curry paste
• Microwave rice pouch ×2Two minutes on the induction plate, no boil
• Baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, avocado ×2, lemon
• Apples, bananas, dark chocolate, nuts, bars ×4
• Coffee, ground — and filters. Soy milk ×2 cartons
• Miso or instant noodle cups ×2The 22:00 answer, and the fog-delay answer
• Olive oil, salt, pepper, chili flakes, garlic powder

Drinks and water

• Water tanks full, at the slipBefore the lines come off, not Saturday morning
• Bottled water for the tender and the beach
• Beer or wine for one evening at anchor
• Thermos filled — Saturday morning may be a long wait

On the water

• Layers for 52°F at dawnFriday evening is 59°F by 20:00 and still falling
• Foul weather jacket, even though no rain is forecast
• Warm hat and gloves — the fog morning will be damp and still
• Sunglasses, sunscreen. It is clear from 13:00 Friday
• Deck shoes, and a dry second pair

Sleeping and ashore

• Bedding for 52°FThe heater is a gesture, the blanket is the plan
• Towels, wash kit, any medication
• Beach shoes you do not mind getting wet at Kayak Point
• Cash and a card — the county park is day-use, but assume nothing is open

Electronics and papers

• Phones, and this page opened once with signalIt works offline after that
• Handheld VHF, charged. Headlamp and a hand torch that is not your phone
• Torqeedo battery, charged to full at homeIt is the one thing the boat cannot refill quickly
• Cables for everything, and the induction plate
• Registration, insurance, licenses aboardAnd the float plan sent before you slip

Tender kit — in the boat, every time

• PFDs, worn, not stowed
• Bailer, oars, painter long enough to be useful
• Handheld VHF and a white light you can hold up
• Phone in a dry bag
• Sand stake or a small anchorFor the beach landing on a falling tide

Meals, as planned

02The window

Wind is a non-event: the model has 2.9 to 4.5 kt through the whole departure window, 15:00 to 20:00, and nothing above 5.2 kt on Saturday. What the site's own area page chips is less flattering than that sounds, and both reasons are worth knowing before you read the table. Friday reads Workable only because the NWS zone text says “2 ft or less” and the scoring takes the 2 as a hard number against a 1-foot limit — a known artifact, not a sea state. Saturday reads Fog, and that one is real.

Friday sunset is 19:16, sunrise Saturday 06:50. Anchored at 17:25 that leaves 1 h 51 m of usable light and another half hour of dusk — enough to set the hook, get the tender wet and time the deployment, which is the one job that genuinely needs daylight.

03The route

Straight up home water, entirely inside Marine Area 8-2. Out of the 12th Street basin, north past Jetty Island, then northwest across Possession Sound clear of Priest Point and Tulalip Bay, in through the two-mile gate between Camano Head and Mission Beach, and north up Port Susan to the point.

The five waypoints are also here as a GPX track — route.gpx — to load straight into the plotter rather than keyed in by hand off the table above.

Bearings are rhumb lines between waypoints, not a routed track around hazards. Magnetic assumes 15.5°E variation — check it against the plotter. ETAs assume lines off at 16:00 and 8 knots over the ground; add the channel work and maneuvering and the hook goes down about 17:25.

If you are late off the dock

04Where the hook goes

Anchor at 48°08.0′N 122°22.4′W, about a quarter mile off the beach and south of the pier, clear of the launch traffic. Sound in on a slow approach from the south and put it down in 25–35 ft. Kayak Point is a cuspate foreland — sand eroded off the bluffs behind it — so the bottom is sand and gravel and the holding is good, but the shelf is narrow and it drops to a hundred feet and more within half a mile to the west. Ten seconds of looking at the sounder beats an hour of regretting.

The reason this beach and not another: Kayak Point is a Snohomish County regional park, so the landing is legal and there is somewhere to walk when you get there. Tulalip Bay and Hat Island both put you on private or tribal shore. For a trip whose entire purpose is getting in and out of a dinghy, that difference is the whole argument.

Setting it, single-handed

• Rig before you get there. Rode flaked and running free, marks visible, snubber pre-rigged on the foredeck, windlass breaker on, remote in your pocket before you leave the flybridge.
• Pick the spot on a slow circle. Watch the sounder for 25–35 ft, note where the boat will end up, look at what else is anchored inside 423 ft of it.
• Stop completely. Neutral, lose all way. Chain piles on a boat that is still moving and a pile does not set.
• Lower under power astern at walking pace. Pay out all 175 ft against the marks, not a guess.
• Snub on nylon, then set. Snubber on first — the windlass is a lifting tool, not a mooring cleat. Then idle astern, then 1,200 rpm for thirty seconds. A dragging anchor buzzes; one that is set thrums.
• Fix the position two ways. Anchor alarm at a 250 ft radius on the plotter and on the phone, plus two transits ashore you can check by eye in the dark.
• Look out once before bed. The track should be a fan, not a line walking off downwind.

Soft sand takes the anchor easily but wants time rather than force. A short hard pull digs a trench instead of a hole. If two attempts do not set, move rather than argue with it.

05Scope, and why the night gets better

Sound 30 ft on arrival at a tide height of 7.7 ft and the charted depth under you is about 22 ft. Add the five feet from waterline to bow roller and 175 ft of rode is 5.0:1 on arrival. High water at 21:23 takes it to its worst, 4.9:1, which in 5 knots of wind is barely a question being asked. By the 05:30 low it is 6.1:1.

That is the argument for setting on a rising or high tide: the night improves while you sleep instead of deteriorating. Set for the low and you spend the small hours watching the ratio go the wrong way.

06The whole thing on one clock

07The tender shakedown

None of this happened — it is still the deliverable. Everything above is logistics; this is the reason the trip existed, and it carries forward to whatever replaces it. Do it in this order, because each step tells you whether the next one is worth attempting in fading light.

• Time the deployment, single-handed. Stopwatch from stowed to floating on a painter. That one number decides whether the tender is usable on a real cruise or a thing you only launch when someone else is aboard.
• Board and disembark, both directions, twice. Swim step to Navigator and back. Note the step-down height, where your hands actually go, and whether you need a grab handle or a boarding step fitted before the next trip.
• Mount and trim the Torqeedo. Clamp bite on the cat transom, kill lanyard, tilt range, steering feel at the tiller. Check it holds trim under way rather than walking up.
• Run a measured leg and log the real consumption. Pick a distance you can verify, run it at your intended cruise throttle, and compare what the Travel XP's range display claimed against what it used. You want your true radius, not the brochure's.
• Land on the beach and get off again. Prop up before the shallows, drag it up solo above the tide line, sand stake or a small anchor. Getting back off a falling tide is the half people forget.
• Decide the overnight stow. Alongside or on a stern bridle. Check chafe points and whether the hulls slap enough to keep you awake — that is a real finding, not a nicety.
• Recharge off the APEX and log it. Watt-hours consumed and hours to full, measured. This is the number that tells you whether the tender works on a multi-day anchor-out or quietly eats the heater budget.
• Skip the ZT3 Pro. 65 lb with handlebars that do not fold, against a 24″ inside beam. Dry-fit it on deck in daylight if you are curious; do not make it a dusk experiment off a swim step.

In the tender, every time

PFD. Headlamp and a hand torch that is not your phone. Handheld VHF. Phone in a dry bag. Bailer, oars and a painter long enough to be useful. Test upwind first so that a flat battery is a downwind problem and not a long row.

What to write down

Deployment, stowed to floating     ____ min       (single-handed)
Boarding                           easy / awkward / needs a step
Torqeedo, cruise throttle          ____ %          ____ kt SOG
Measured leg                       ____ nm         ____ % battery used
Implied full-charge range          ____ nm
Beach landing                      easy / awkward / notes: __________
Overnight stow                     alongside / bridle      slap? y / n
Recharge from APEX                 ____ Wh         ____ h to full
Verdict for a real cruise          __________________________________

08Power: the stack, and no generator

The generator stays home. That is the difference between this trip and the one it replaced, and for a single night it is not much of a difference at all — what made the generator matter at Eagle Harbor was the second night. Here the stack has one evening, one night and one foggy morning to carry, and it has plenty.

At anchor 17:25 Friday to anchor up about 13:00 Saturday is 19.6 hours — 0.82 of a day. The fog is what sets that end time, not the plan; see section 09.

The tender is the load nobody counts

The Torqeedo Travel XP battery is the reason this matters at all. Nameplate is about 915 Wh, and a full recharge off the stack is therefore roughly 1,040 Wh once inverter and charger losses are in — call it a sixth of the whole budget, spent silently overnight while you sleep.

That figure is the one this trip exists to replace with a measurement. Nameplate is not consumption: what you actually want is watt-hours in, from a meter, for a battery you have genuinely flattened on a measured run. Log it before you trust it.

• Note APEX state of charge at anchor-down17:25 Friday, before anything is plugged in
• Fridge moved to the 12 V house bankFree, and the single biggest lever on the boat
• Torqeedo on charge once, overnight, meteredWh in and hours to full — that is the number
• Heater two hours on 700 W before bed, thermostattedThen let the bedding hold it
• SoC and cumulative Wh at 20:00 and again at 07:00Two readings make a rate; one makes a guess
• Cabin temperature at 22:00 and at 06:00Against forecast lows of 52–53°F
• Anything that tripped, throttled or got warmEspecially with the tender charging

09Saturday, and the fog

Rinse the rode as it comes in — Port Susan mud does not improve on the foredeck. Motor up to the anchor and let the windlass take it straight up rather than winching the boat to the anchor. If it is stubborn, snub it short and idle a slow circle to roll it out.

10Fuel, rules and the things that bite

About 28 gallons, roughly 14 a side, on a 200 gallon total capacity — call it 15% of what is aboard. Record engine hours at departure and arrival; 20.8 nm against actual gallons is a clean burn number, and this is a short enough trip to get one without a lot of confounding.

Seasons, Marine Area 8-2

Salmon and halibut are open. Crab is not — no pots this trip. Re-check the 8-2 tile the morning of departure; emergency rules move.

Aboard

• Anchor light on at dusk, alarm set on both the plotter and the phone.
• CO monitor tested if the generator is coming along.
• Offline charts for Port Susan on the tablet before you leave cell coverage.
• Float plan sent ashore before lines off.

11Float plan

FLOAT PLAN  -  OTIUM  -  18/19 September 2026

VESSEL      OTIUM (renaming to TANGLEFOOT)
            1987 Bayliner 3288 motoryacht, 32 ft LOA, white hull, flybridge
            HIN BL2A36EKJ687
            Twin Hino W04C-T diesels
BERTH       Port of Everett Marina, 12th Street Basin

SKIPPER     Rich Eicher          Mobile: ______________________
CREW        ______________________________________________
MMSI / VHF  ______________________  Monitoring VHF 16

DEPARTURE   Friday 18 September 2026, approx 16:00 PDT, Port of Everett

ROUTE       North out of the 12th St basin, past the north end of Jetty Island,
            NW through Possession Sound off Priest Point and Tulalip Bay, into
            Port Susan between Camano Head and Mission Beach, north to Kayak Point.
            10.4 nm, about 78 minutes at 8 knots. Marine Area 8-2 throughout.

ANCHORAGE   Off Kayak Point, Port Susan
            48 deg 08.0 min N, 122 deg 22.4 min W
            About 0.25 nm off the county park beach, south of the pier.
            One night. Anchor light on, GPS anchor alarm set.

RETURN      Saturday 19 September 2026, alongside Everett by approx 14:00 PDT.
            Departure from the anchorage is fog-dependent; may be delayed to as
            late as 12:30 with arrival by 14:00.

CELL        Coverage along this route is generally good, but silence is not by
            itself a reason to worry.

IF OVERDUE  More than 3 hours past the return time:
            1. Call the Port of Everett marina office and ask whether OTIUM is
               back in her slip.
            2. If not, call the US Coast Guard on VHF 16 or dial 911, and give
               them this plan.

Positions here are planning positions. Verify against a current chart.